Prologue

It was because of the storm that the events in the forest went unnoticed. If anyone had been outside they would have said the flashing light was lightning, the loud noises were thunder, wind and debris being flung about. They weren't wrong, but they weren't exactly right either; there was something more than a mere storm rolling through the Forest of Dean. If anyone had been crazy enough to go outside, they would have seen the fierce battle taking place, barely masked by nature's display of power.

It wasn't long before the fight was over. As always, there was only one victor. Through from the amount of injuries sustained, and the lives that had been lost in the process, the victory was a hollow one. With blood loss becoming more of an issue with every second that passed, the victor had to use what was available to wipe the scars of battle from the landscape. Lightning struck the ground, fire breaking out despite the heavy rain. Burning wildly, it was nonetheless contained by the somewhat trembling hand of the victor, covering only the ground where the battle had taken place, burning away all traces of the fight. The body of the deceased opponent was hit by bolt after bolt of lightning until nothing remained but a pile of ash, whipped away by the forceful wind along with the remains from the fires, finally extinguished by the rain. All that remained was a charred landscape, although if anyone had been there to witness the events that had taken place, they would have noticed that small buds were already starting to push up through the soil, trees were sprouting and the grass was beginning to grow.

With a soft, weary exhale of bone-aching relief, the victor sank to the ground. Their body was actually enveloped by the soil, the torn form sinking deeper into the earth with each passing minute. By the time the storm had finally blown itself out, nothing remained of the fight, and there was no evidence that anyone had ever set foot in that part of the forest.

Only a few miles away from the site, the gentle, practically unnoticeable pulsing of air finally ceased. The sounds of cars, airplanes and general city noises finally ceased. For in this part of the world, none of that existed. Nor would it, not at that level, for at least another two hundred or so years. For the two figures who had been fighting had fallen, not that they had realised it at the time, through a rip, a tear in reality. But, as the figure would come to discover upon rising in a few months, it wasn't just a jump into the past that had occurred; it had truly been a gateway into another reality, an alternate universe.

Another one.


Chapter One

For once the sun was shining. Granted it was also extremely cloudy and windy, but the sun was still shining goddamnit. There were also dozens of tourists to contend with, which were nearly as bad as mosquitoes. Del sighed heavily, shaded eyes glaring at the crowds from behind a pair of aviator glasses. Scratch that, they were worse than mosquitos, with their constant questions and camera flashes. The noise and the litter left behind were nightmares to deal with too. With another sigh Del turned back to the latest piece uncovered, a set of prints dating back to the Cretaceous Period. Currently it was unknown what the exact date of the fossils were, that would be determined further down the line. For now they were simply uncovering them. Or they would be, if not for the incessant distractions.

Del's site supervisor, an old grad student by the name of Elias Drake, jumped down into the newest trench and saw the direction his boss' gaze. He looked at the crowds and snorted slightly, shaking his head.

"You ever gonna get over them?" His voice was soft, but still managed to carry over the wind to his employer.

"I highly doubt it. What do they think they are going to see, the complete skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus? They would be better off going to London for that."

Eli grinned at the familiar rant. "It's exciting. There hasn't been a dig here in several years, and not on this part of the island. And the interest can't harm our image." A shrug was his only reply and he sighed slightly. "C'mon Del, just ignore them. They're not exactly hurting us or the dig are they." It wasn't a question.

"No I guess not. Whoever thought those films were a good idea though need to be shot." Eli laughed, though he was never sure if it was merely idle talk or a veiled threat. There was always something a little…primal…about his boss. Still, he shrugged it off as they both knelt down at the fossils, trowels and brushes in hand, to help the research and grad students taking part in the dig.


Several hours later Eli straightened up, groaning slightly as his back clicked several times. He rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes and glanced down at his boss, shaking his head. No matter how many digs they went on together, he was always amazed at the stamina of his leader. Once Del started a project everything else ceased to exist other than the task at hand. Oblivious to everything and everyone around them, Del would excavate for hours without a break. It never ceased to amuse him.

Stretching his neck Eli glanced up to the barriers, keeping away the people who had come to gawk at the first dig on the Isle of Wight in thirty years. How Del had managed to secure the funding and permits he would never know, but they had never been turned down. The sun had finally been driven behind the clouds and the wind had picked up, the temperature dropping. It had driven most of the observers away, although there were a few that remained. Eli's eyes narrowed in on two people, a man and a woman, who were watching him intently and he frowned. The man seemed familiar, but he couldn't think for the life of him where he had seen him before.

Briefly he contemplated trying to get Del's attention, then instantly dismissed the thought; it would be easier to make a stone bleed. He could have gone up himself, but when he turned his attention back to the pair they had already moved off. Shrugging slightly he turned back to his work, keeping an ear open to the soft conversations from the other workers, just in case someone needed help. Even so, he was oblivious to the approach of a senior grad student, Brad Henshaw, until a throat was cleared right behind him. Eli dropped his brush and stood up, turning around and wiping dust off his hands as he did so. Brad shrugged slightly at him in apology. "These people are here to see…" but before he could finish he was cut off by the man behind him, the same one Eli had spotted earlier.

"…You, Dr Jackson. We were wondering if you would be able to help us with a query. This is my…colleague, Abby Maitland and I'm Professor Nick Cutter." The blonde-haired man held out a hand to Eli.

"Well whatever it is had better be both quick and extremely important, seeing as you are trespassing on my dig."

Eli couldn't contain the grin upon seeing the visitor's reactions to the voice of his boss. It wasn't the first time this had happened and he had been mistaken for the Doctor, but by God, it never got old.


Abby wasn't sure what he had expected when they had finally arrived at the dig. She was a zookeeper for crying out loud, and worked with lizards. Not bugs, not elephant dung (eww), and certainly not what looked like something out of prehistory. Now this…anomaly (she truly couldn't think of a better word for it) along with the scaly visitors almost guaranteed she wasn't going back to the zoo anytime soon (though she was pretty certain she wouldn't have been staying there for much longer anyway.) In fact, it was because of the anomaly they had decided to seek out advice from the reclusive Dr D. Jackson. The doctor seldom held lectures, leaving that to other colleagues or an assistant so she had been expecting to be meeting a gentleman in his mid-sixties, based on the information the Home Office had reluctantly dug up for them. Nick and Abby were making a quick detour to visit the Doctor on their way back to Gloucestershire.

So to be led to someone who looked like he was only slightly older than Conner or herself was more than a little confusing. There was no way this could be the Doctor they were after, she was too young to have such a reputation. But that confusion was swept aside into pure disbelief when Abby heard the answer to Nick's question. The glance they shared confirmed that Nick was feeling just as bewildered by the whole situation. The kid was sporting a shit-eating grin and stepped to one side, revealing a person kneeling on the ground behind him. All Abby could see was a pair of mud-caked boots, worn jeans, a dust-covered jacket, and the back of an old Outback hat (wow, she wanted that hat). There was no way that voice belonged to that figure.

But low and behold, as the silence continued (neither Abby nor Nick could honestly think of anything to say) the figure stood with a huff and turned around, removing a pair of aviators' and the hat to reveal…an absolutely breath-taking woman. Dimly she heard the man who had stood up to greet them stifling a laugh and, for about the tenth time in 24 hours, wished the ground would open up and swallow her whole.

Nick was the first to recover. Clearing his throat he held out his hand again. "My apologies, I was led to believe D stood for…"

"Del," the woman interrupted him somewhat impatiently. "You are correct. It's short for Della. Now tell me what you need so I can get you off of my site as soon as possible."


Della couldn't be sure what had driven her to excavate in Whitecliff Bay on the Isle of Wight, but something had drawn her there. That along with the readings RIC was receiving from the area (granted she didn't have him when she had first arrived), but the conditions of the past few weeks had been exactly the same as when she had first landed in this universe. Her memories, whilst retaining the fight that had been taking place at the time, were also of a storm that was not of her making, nor was it created by her opponent. It was like an influx of different energies had hit one another, creating the vortex that had spat her out into this world.

Energies similar to what she could remember had sprung up along the south coast of Britain a few months ago, and ever since then she had been fighting to gain the permits to excavate. She'd gone over the area the energies had covered and found nothing…on the surface anyway. Underground however, was a different story.

And she hadn't been disappointed. Three weeks into the excavation and they were uncovering more finds than several of her colleagues' digs put together. And not all of the fossils and skeletons were from this world, she was sure of it. In fact, the one she was currently working on looked very familiar indeed, much to her amusement, and slight trepidation.

Which was why she was beyond pissed off to be interrupted. Why could these sodden people not get the hint? She was not known as a people person for crying out loud, for a very specific reason. Not that anyone besides herself and RIC knew what that reason was.

Della pushed back her hat back on and stuffed her glasses into a pocket whilst staring at the intruders. Internally she felt the smallest hint of satisfaction at their reaction to her identity, one of the two reasons she never made it apparent she was female. But it did little to mask the irritation she was feeling; these footprints were the whole reason she had engineered the dig in the first place. She raised an eyebrow as the visitors glanced at each other somewhat uncertainly and restrained herself from sighing heavily. "Professor Cutter, as you can see I really am very busy, and our light is starting to go. What can I help you with?" And Elias had said just that morning she didn't know the meaning of the word diplomacy. How little he knew.

Cutter cleared his throat, glancing around briefly. "Is there somewhere a bit more…private, where we can talk?"

Della heard Elias attempt to smother a laugh. Gritting her teeth (really, this whole idea of diplomacy was beyond overrated) she threw down the brush in her hand and turned around, stepping out of the trench and walking over to a nearby tent. She didn't need to look behind her to know that Cutter and the woman (Abby did he say) were scrambling to keep up and, because she was feeling particularly vindictive (and possibly a little bit petty), sped up a little more. She brushed into the tent and gestured for the two techs inside to leave, which bless them they did without question. She toed a chair out from under a desk and sat down, throwing her hat on the bench as she did so. "I suggest you bloody well start talking."


There was an icy hint to the woman's, Dr Jackson's, voice, that sent a shiver down Nick's spine. He refused to show how unsettled he was by the young woman (she looked the same age as Stephan, how could she have the reputation she held?) and dove in with his first question. "What do you know of the Permian period, Dr Jackson, specifically the later part?"

He saw her raise an eyebrow, no doubt confounded as to why a professor of his reputation would be asking a fellow expert such a simple question, but she answered nonetheless, spitting out facts like she was reading them off of a page.

"A geologic period that spanned 47 million years, it preceded the Triassic period and was the last period of the Paleozoic era. The concept of the period was introduced back in 1841 by geologist Sir Roderick Murchison; he named it after the city of Perm. During the Permian period the world was dominated by two continents – the Pangaea and Siberia, which were surrounded by a global ocean named Panthalassa. The collapse of the Carboniferous rainforest created vast deserts which stood at the continental interior. Beings that were able to cope better with the dried conditions were called amniotes rose to dominance in place of their amphibian ancestors. Probably the most note-worthy event in the period was the Permian-Triassic extinction event. The largest recorded mass extinction event in the history of the planet, nearly 96% of marine species and 70% of terrestrial species were wiped out, and it took around 30 million years for ecosystems on land to recover. Probably one of the few times when the planet was under rather than over-populated."

A ghost of a grin crossed the doctor's face as she finished talking, before she leant down and opened a cooler, throwing them each a bottle of water before taking one for herself. She swallowed a mouthful of water before screwing the top back on. "But that wasn't the question you wanted me to answer was it, Professor Cutter. You already know all of that information."

The note of irritation was still evident in her voice, warning Nick her patience was wearing thin. He shrugged slightly, then was instantly worried he may have just come across as patronising. "Just had to make sure. Do you know what creatures would have been around then?"

The woman, Dr Jackson, Del, Della (what the hell was he supposed to call her?) rolled her eyes and began to speak again. From the tone of her voice, Nick was suspecting she was merely humouring him. "Gorgonopsians and Dicynodonts were the more advanced creatures around in the late Permian period. There were also Diictodons, Dimetrodons, Therocephalians and Pareiasaurs just to name a few others. That's not including the insects that would have been around too."

Nick exchanged a glance with Abby, nodding slightly. This was definitely the person they had come to see. Now how to go around the slightly more difficult part of their enquiry. Nick was well aware of Claudia and Lester's concerns about bringing more people in, and the security issues, but in his eyes, having creatures from millions of years ago wandering around in the English countryside was far more important. With that in mind, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and dove into his images.

"What would you say created this footprint?" He found the right picture and handed the phone to her. There was a moment's hesitation before she took the phone from his hand; for a second her fingertips brushed his hand and he was shocked at how cold her hand was. But he didn't comment, simply withdrew his hand and let her study the picture. "Sorry, I know the picture isn't great."

Dr Jackson lifted a shoulder slightly in the resemblance of a shrug and took a close look at the picture. He saw her frown a little before she looked back up at him.

"That was made by a Scutosaurus. The round foot shows an equal proportion of weight which was distributed under the whole body, along with the stubby toes. Fossils like this have only been found in Russia though, and in far worse conditions. I'd even go so far as to say it was a fresh track. Where the hell did you find it?"

Her interest was evident. Abby tensed slightly beside him but Nick gestured for the doctor to move to the next picture. He already knew it wasn't the same creature but he couldn't be certain what exactly it was. "And the other picture?" She raised an eyebrow at his complete dismissal of her question but nonetheless flicked to the next picture. Her eyes instantly widened and she looked up at him in something akin to alarm.

"A Gorgonop? This was one of the main predators that would have resided in modern southern Africa. It was suited to the warm climates. The only similarity to the Scutosaurus is the legs supported the body from below rather than to the sides. This creature is similar to modern panthers, once it gets a hint of blood its patient, would stalk its prey for hours, days if need be. Their kills would be stored in trees and they were one of the fastest creatures of the period." Without waiting she scrolled to the next picture again. Her eyes widened even further at the picture. It was clearly the imprint of both animals, one overlapping the other. She looked slowly up at Nick. "Where the hell were these pictures taken?"


I would just like to point out that I have no clue about the different species of pre-historic creatures other than what I have seen in the Jurassic films. All creatures mentioned in this story have come from Wikipedia and Primeval's Wiki page. Some of them did exist, others did not. They are not my creation, I only own the original characters.